Sabbath

Yesterday, we enjoyed our Sabbath Bible Study. We are reading from the book of Isaiah and are learning to sing the psalms in meter, which is a lot of fun. Even Joseph, the baby, hums along while we are singing.

In the afternoon, the children enjoyed their rest time and made "tepees".

The Beams Go Up

This past week Dane got the four big beams up for the second story floor of the house. We all wondered how he was going to do it since the beams are 4x12x19feet long, but he and Javier did it, and made it look easy. Before the beams went up, Dane sanded them and Javier put two coats of what they call barnise, on them. Now the guys are working on sanding and finishing all the other smaller beams. Lord willing, they expect to have them up by the end of next week, and they will move on to the walls.

Little Helpers

What a blessing to have little helpers.......



Abby the Chicken/Duck Herder

Dane's carpenter students: Elijah, David, and Joseph

Cooks in the kitchen: Sarah and Elisabeth

Laundry Helpers: Sarah, Elisabeth, and Elijah

Concrete, Swinging, and Ducks

The past couple of weeks have been busy for us. Dane, Javier, and Andres finished pouring all the concrete for the bottom floor of the house and they poured all the columns too. The final product is really nice. I thank the Lord for providing my husband and his helpers the strength to make it through those back breaking hours of labor. They are done pouring for now and will begin sanding the wood for the house.





Some of the concrete making tools became fun playthings for everyone. One day when Dane took a strap off the wood to move it, the strap disappeared quickly. The children had found the strap on the concrete and took it to the old peach tree and made a swing out of it. Also the rope that the men were using to hoist the concrete up to pour the columns became a swing and an elevator to the roof. What fun!

A few weeks ago we enjoyed some duck meat at the Sosa's and this week they gave us a male and female duck so that we could start raising our own. We are pleased with the new addition, but are anxious to provide them with some water to play in. The Sosa's assure us that the ducks are used to not having water to play in, but a duck out of water just seems unnatural to me. Anyway, here is a not so good picture of them hiding in the weeds of their new home.

The children and I have busied ourselves with our usual work these past couple of weeks. We enjoyed the chicken that I butchered, although the meat was a little tough. The children's schoolwork is going along very well too. In addition, I have added several of our email updates from 2007 to the blog, so if you are interested in rereading those, look in the archive folders for them and watch for more to be added soon, Lord willing.

Chicken

I killed and butchered my first chicken today, an old rooster! It went well. Susana was here to help me and give me moral support. I wanted to try skinning the chicken, feathers and all, instead of removing the feathers and then skinning the bird, so that is what we did.

We decided to butcher most of the chickens (one a week) that we bought from the neighbor in town and replace them with new chickens. We really don't have any idea how old these chickens are and the hens' egg production is really poor. We are only getting one or two eggs every three days now.

I put the meat in the freezer and will cook it tomorrow. I will let you know how it turns out.

Jessica

School Days

We finally got the children's school books that we ordered from Rod and Staff. It only took them a month to arrive to us in Obera. We had anticipated that it might take up to three months. The books were shipped by way of DHL, so we could track their progress. They actually arrived in Argentina from the United States two days after we placed an order for them. Once in Buenos Aires they were handed over to a third party to deliver to Obera. They seemed to bounce around the country and were even in Obera once, but we missed them before they bounced around some more and returned.

The children started their school year here at the farm last week on the third. It is going really well. The children begin at six o'clock am and finish for the day by noon. The schedule is great for us because then we have the entire afternoon to work on other things. This year, Abby is in the sixth grade, Sarah the fifth, Elijah the third, Elisabeth the first, and David is learning letters, numbers, colors, etc.

Thank You Lord for Times of Rest

We really appreciate those times that we have to rest from our work.

This is a picture of Joseph practicing to stand. He needed several rewarding kisses from Dad.

These pictures show Dane playing with some of the children.

Here is a picture of Abby taking a nap in the grass under a tree. She looks so peaceful, doesn't she?

One Sabbath Day......

Here we all are eating watermelon at our neighbors', the Sosas.

After lunch we swam in the river. This part of the river is on the Sosa's property. In the picture, Dane and Javier are swimming upstream in the rapids with Elijah and Abby. Although they were having fun, I think they decided swimming upstream was too much work for a rest day.

Critters and Such

Well we finally did have some chicks hatch. We had two hens that decided to sit and between the two of them we ended up with four chicks. Not very many, but we have had had some problems to overcome in our chicken rearing and we are very pleased that the Lord saw fit to give us four healthy chicks. That was a couple of months ago and the chicks have already grown quite large.

The children are always finding interesting insects. This is a picture of a huge praying mantis.

This is a big cicada. These things can produce a deafening sound!

One day when we were swimming in the river, Andres saw a black snake in a tree over the water. Dane got the snake and he and Javier killed it. This picture shows the children posing with it.

Well it is hard to see in the picture, but there is a toucan in the tree. We have enjoyed seeing many on our property lately. They are really large birds and make a funny croaky sound.

This isn't a critter, but in the forest there are some huge cactus. They grow as tall or taller than some of the trees. Their trunks look just like the trunks of the other trees (woody or with bark). I found these when I was chasing the toucans into the forest for a picture.

God of Wonders

One cloudy day starting at 12:30 pm, there was a complete rainbow around the sun. The rainbow remained for three hours. It was truly an awesome sight.

Building Fences

Things have been moving right along for us here. Dane finished fencing in a one and half hectacre (about 3 acres) section of our farm so that we can buy some animals. A lot of work went into making it: looking for trees, chopping down dead trees, cutting posts, clearing brush, crossing ravines, setting posts, and stretching wire. The fence turned out really nice; in fact, it is one of the nicest farm fences that I have ever seen. All the fence posts came from our property which makes it even nicer. The fence is a solar powered electric fence with a charge of 3000 volts (Ouch!). Anyway, we look forward to having some livestock again for milk, cheese, and meat.

I had to include this picture of Elijah and David helping Dane to move posts from the forest up to our homesite.